Rail bond terminal



Sept. 28, 1943. H. H. FEBREY RAIL BOND TERMINAL Filed May 14, 1940 PIE. 1.-

Illlll Patented Sept. 28, 1943 UNITED STA S.

v RAIL BOND TERMINAL i Harold H. Febrey, South Orange, N. J., assignor i to The American Steel and Wire Company of New Jersey, a corporation of'New Jersey Application May 14, 1940, Serial No. 335,181

. Thisinvention relates to rail bond stud termi-' nals of the type adapted for installation by way of bottomed rail holes or recesses, and .is particularly concerned with signal bond stud terminals of the type installed in bottomed holes .or recesses formed in the sides of the rail heads.

Railroads now commonly specify that the holes formed in the sides of the rail heads for effecting installation of this type of stud terminal signal bond, have a diameter of of an inch and a depth of of an inch. The dimensions of these holes vary slightly according to the condition of the drill used to form them and the manipula-' tion of this drill.

The problem of providing stud terminalsfor installation by way of these small holes has been met by various designs, the one with which the present invention is concerned being that wherein a hole is formed through the terminal head and into the stud, the hole opening from the side of the head opposite the stud and a malleable metal insert being positioned in the hole within the stud. Installation is efiected bymeans of a tool which a workman positions in the hole through its opening so as to contact the insert, the tool then being struck a few blows with a hammer by the workman so as to compress the insert and expand the same, this effecting ex-.

pansion of the stud against the rail metal surrounding the hole. There are variations in the design of this terminal but the principles involved are broadly as just described.

- The tool used by the workman is in the form of a punch and its working end must be of sufii cient size to prevent its breaking when stressed A inch diameter cylindrical end is now generally considered a stand-' by the hammer blows.

ard. Since the rail hole is only /8 of an inch indiameter and experience has shown that the working end of the tool cannot safely be reduced to a diameter less than this standard, it follows that the wall of the stud surrounding the insert on which this tool works is relatively thin.

'It is necessary to remove rail bonds on occasion; and the terminal design under discussion has the disadvantage in that its necessarily thinof the bond is destroyed in case its specific termi- 5 Claims. (01. 238-1413) nal .designpermits its reuse and it is necessary to drill out the stud remains from the rail hole,

this being an expensive and troublesome proce-' dure andinvolving the danger of undueenlargement of the rail'hole. v i Keeping the foregoing in mind, a signalbond terminal constructed in accordance with the present invention but following the general design discussed, has the advantage'that-it permits the use of a punch having a full-size working end, thisbeing the standard A; inch round cross section, while at the-same time providing a stud having a wall that is thickened toprovide the studwith a tensile strength exceeding the holding strength of the stud in therail hole. This dee sirable effect is attained entirely-without a ,decrease in the normal holding strength of the stud in the rail hole. I I

.For instance, the inventionpermits the provi-: sion of a terminal made of the usual .soi t steel having a tensile strength of around 53,000 pounds per square inch,'with its stud wall sufiiciently. thick to provide the stud with a tensilestrength considerably exceeding 4000 pounds, the holding power of the tud in the rail hole ranging above 2000 pounds although, of course, it does not exceed the maximum holding power of this design of terminal when constructed according to the prior art. The accompanying bond terminals of the design under consideration and which embody the invention, the variou figures being as followsf Figure 1, a longitudinal section of a first example insertedin a rail head hole and ready for More specifically, both examples are conventional insofar as they include ahead I anda study 2, the latter being externally dimensioned to fit a hole formed in the side of, a rail head when this hole is of the dimensions now commonly specified by the railroads. The punch 3 is also conventional in that its working end is of a A; inch round cross section. It might be mentioned that this punch 3 is usuallyprovided with a handle forpositioning it and has a head opposite its drawing illustrates signal working end, which is struck by the workman with a hammer.

The terminal is novel in that the hole opening from the side of the head I opposite the stud 2 and extending through the head and into the stud almost to the end of the latter, is made with a portion 4 within the head and including the hole opening, which is of standard diameter,. whereas the remainder of the hole including all of that within the stud and a part within the head, has a reduced diameter. This construction provides the stud including its junction with the head, with a wall that is much thicker than standard. For example, assuming the stud to have a diameter of slightly less than of an inch, and the hole within this stud to be about 1% of an inch, the stud is provided with the higher tensile strength previously described when made of steel having that tensile strength.

Expansion of the stud is effected by a malIeable metal insert 6, this insert extending from the bottom of the hole and up into the full-size portion 4 of the hole. within the head. It follows that its expansion may be effected in the usual manner by the use of the usual tool, yet the tensile strength of the stud exceeds its maximum possible holding power in the rail hole, whereby the terminal can always be removed without fear of fracturing its stud.

The insert 5, made of copper, is shown as fill ing the portion 5 of thehole within the stud and as being cylindrical throughout its length including its portion extending into the standand size portion of the hole. Therefore, when the tool 3 is struck with the first blow of the hammer, the first action is to flatten out the end of the insert. The flattened metalupsets onto an annular shoulder 1 at the junction: between the portions 4 and 5 of the hole, this shoulder being made sufficiently abrupt so that J:

a part of the force of thexfirst hammer blow and the force of succeeding blows is transmitted: longitudinally through the, upset insert metal: into the shoulder and so through the headv into the thick stud Wall, it,being understood that a large portion of the force of the hammer blows goes; into longitudinal compression of the insert so as to effect its lateral expansion with consequent expansion of the stud.

One difficulty experienced with terminals of the design here involved, is the tendency of the terminal stud to retreat from the rail hole while being expanded by the insert. However, in the case oithe present terminal,- this tendency is entirely counteracted by the fact that aportion of the insert expanding force is transmitted longitudinally into the stud wall so as to prevent the stud from retreating from the rail hole.

' At the same time, this force transmitted into the stud wall tends to shorten the'stud' wall which by itself results in expansion of the stud through thickening of its wall which, at' th'e'sam'e' time, is being expanded by the' expanding in sert.

In the case of the modified terminal illus trated by Figure 3, the same parts-are'used and are therefore similarly numeraled exceptingthat the letter a isused for identification p The punch 3 is in the form of a tool" by the terminal as a part of the same tool may be retained inthe hole porti'on 4 by being press-fitted into place, it-being understood that while it is not necessary that this tool. be so sturdy aswhen. the removable punch is used which must effect the installatiom of a large number of bonds, it is still desirable to have it as strong as it can possibly be made. In other words, a terminal of the type having the tool built into it is useless if the tool fails after the first one or two hammer blows or when the terminal is reused.

Another difierence in this modification is that the insert 6 has, its end flattened at the time of the manufacture of the terminal so that it completely fills the portion 4 of the hole that is of standard size. By prefiattening or upsetting this end, the first hammer blow transmits the same portion of its force longitudinally into the stud wall as do subsequent blows. This feature may also be incorporated when the tool used is of the type shown in the case of the first example, it being necessary to consider the tool as part of the terminal in all instances, because one of the primary advantages of the present invention is its ability to use the standard working end of the usual punch.

I claim: 4

L. A railbond terminal having a head anda studwith a hole opening from the side of the head opposite the stud and extending through the head and into the stud, the hole terminating inside the stud and the portion of the hole within the stud: having a smaller diameter than a portion of the hole within the head including the opening to the hole, and a malleable insert positioned in the first named portion of the hole with an endextending towards the second namedportionof the hole.

2. A rail bond terminal having a head and a stud with a hole' opening from the side of the head opposite the stud and extending through the head and into the stud, the hole terminating inside the stud and the portion of the hole within the stud having a smaller diameter than a portion of the hole within the head including the opening to" the hole, and a malleable insert positioned in the first named portion ofthe hole with an end: extending towards the second named portion of the' hole, the diameter of the first named portion of the hole' beingsufiicient- 1y small ascompared tothe outside diameter of the stud toprovide the latter with a wall thickness furnishing the tensile strength necessary to permit forcible withdrawal of the stud without its fracturing when it is installed in a rail hole portion of the hole being sufiiciently large as, compared: to the outside diameter of the stud so as to permit the insertion of a tool end of a diameter sogreat that if the first named portion of the hole were of sufiicient diameter to permit insertion of the same tool end, the wall thickness of thestudwouldnot furnish the tensile strength here defined.

3. A rail bond terminal having a head and a stud with whole opening from the side of the head opposite the stud and extending through the head and into the stud, the hole terminating inside the stud and the portion of the hole within the stud having a smaller diameter thana portion ofthe hole within the head including the opening to the hole-, and a-malleable insert positioned in the first named portion of the hole with anend extending into the second named portion of the hole, the junction between the two portionsof the hole being in: the form of an annular shoulder adapted to receive metal upset from the: insert when the latter is come pressed by a compression tool and to transmit some of the compression force exerted tool longitudinally into the stud.

4. A rail bond terminal having a head and a stud with a hole opening fromthe side of the head opposite the stud and extending through the head and into the stud,the hole terminatby the 7 ing inside the stud and the portion of the hole:

within the stud having a smaller diameter than a portion of the hole Within the head including the opening to the hole, and a malleable insert positioned in the first named portion of the hole with an end extending towards the second named portion of the hole, the terminal including a tool of a diameter larger than the first named portion of the hole fitted in the second named portion with an inner end contacting the insert and an outer end projecting through the opening to the hole beyond the side of the head opposite the stud.

5. The combinationof a railroad rail head having a hole formed in its side of the dimenthat the stud Wall is sufficiently thick to have a tensile strength exceeding the strength of its hold in the rail hole, the insert terminating within the terminal head and the portion of the terminal hole between the insert end and the terminal hole opening being sufliciently large to accommodate the entrance of the Working end of the type of punch used to install sig nal bonds, of the type here defined when this working end is of standard size.

HAROLD I-I. FEBREY. 

